Jon Athan - Am I Beautiful?

Sniffling and whining, he sent his mother a fourth text message: I’m sorry.

He covered his mouth to catch his gasp. He heard footsteps on the concrete walkway outside, growing louder with each step.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud!

Evan tried to call his mother, but the call went straight to her voicemail because she always turned off her cell phone during work hours. If there was an emergency, he was supposed to call the store directly and ask for her. Emergencies, however, were usually accompanied by intense panic, and intense panic had a way of killing rational thoughts.

No one was ever really prepared for a real emergency. Children were especially unprepared.

Tears dripping from his eyes, Evan bolted out of the closet. Broken glass crunched and plastic bags rustled under his sneakers. He slid to a stop in the hallway. He saw the back of a woman’s head as she ascended the stairs in front of him. Before she could reach the landing and turn to face him, he dashed up the stairs to the third floor.

He stopped in another hallway, launching clouds of dust and slivers of wood into the air. He looked everywhere for an escape route or a hiding place. He heard the stairs creaking behind him. He lurched up the stairs and headed to the fourth floor. He didn’t see a viable exit or decent hiding place, so his sweaty palm slid across the handrail as he ran up to the fifth floor.

He was surprised to see it was the top floor of the building— a dead end . He ran to the end of the hallway to his left and looked out the broken window. He thought about jumping, but he was afraid of heights. He looked back at the stairs upon hearing a squealing floorboard. She was getting closer. He ran to the other end of the hall.

He slid into the last apartment to his left and found himself in another living room. All of the doors and furniture had been removed from the apartment, replaced with trash. There was nowhere to hide. He spotted the rusty railing of a fire escape outside of the living room window. It was his only escape route. The footsteps accelerated in the hallway behind him. He took a big gulp of air before running towards the window.

“Help!” he cried as he ran. “Help me! She’s—”

The floor collapsed as he reached the center of the living room. He fell through the floor and landed in the apartment below. The explosive crashing sound echoed through the neighborhood, followed by the boy’s bellows of agony. His legs had snapped at the knees. Below his busted kneecaps, his fractured tibia bones stuck out of his skin. He couldn’t hear the floor groaning under him over his own screaming.

He looked up and, through his tears, he saw the silhouette of the woman looking down at him from the massive hole in the ceiling.

Then the floor of the fourth-floor apartment collapsed, too. He plummeted into the apartment below. His body landed with a loud thud and rumble , as if lightning had struck the building. He was knocked unconscious, clouds of dust swallowing him whole.

Evan’s eyes fluttered open. He saw the massive holes in the ceilings above him. Plasterboard dust spiraled down on him, caking his skin and irritating his eyes and wounds. He whined as stabs of pain surged from his broken legs. He felt some numbness down there, too. He babbled, but he couldn’t say a single word. He propped himself up on his elbows and lifted his head slowly.

More pain throbbed from the nape of his neck. His spinal cord was injured during the fall. Before he could examine his legs, he saw something red glittering in his vision, like a ruby. And behind it, he saw the shadow of a person crouching near his feet. His heart skipped a beat while his head bobbed from his lightheadedness.

As his vision cleared, he saw Miki squatting near his feet, smoking a cigarette with a mask dangling from one of her ears. He recognized her clothing from the chase.

“You’re awake,” she said, smiling. “Are you okay?”

Evan panted. He peed himself, soaking his tighty-whities and denim shorts in urine.

“Aww, poor baby,” Miki said. She took another puff of her cigarette, then she asked, “Why did you run from me?”

Evan’s eyelids twitched and his head swayed. He fought to stay awake through the unbearable pain. He gritted his teeth and tried to scoot back, but his elbows slid on the dust and he fell back to the floor. He barely moved a centimeter. Whimpering, he propped himself up on his elbows again and flailed on the floor.

Miki asked, “Oh, are you still trying to get away from me?” She pouted and sniffled, then she said, “That hurts my feelings. And I just wanted to ask you a question.”

“Ma–Mommy,” Evan cried, his voice barely perceptible over his whining.

“ Oh. I know what I’ll do. I’ll earn your trust. Let me help you, honey.”

She set her cigarette down on a broken floorboard, plumes of smoke rising from the cherry. Then she took a stainless-steel lighter out of her pocket. She opened it and flicked the spark wheel until it ignited.

“Now don’t you move,” she said in an eerily calm tone. “This is going to stop the bleeding.”

Evan wiggled on the floor. Splinters of wood scraped his elbows and the small of his back. Miki squeezed his right thigh and held the flame up to the open fracture under his knee. Evan’s head bounced off the floor as he shrieked. The boy’s scream went through the abandoned apartment buildings next door and reached some of the occupied houses on the other blocks.

Some of the neighbors heard it but dismissed it as a scream from one of the local drug addicts. Most of the neighbors missed it, though.

Miki heard his blood sizzling. She watched as the flame bounced off his bloody, splintered bone and his smooth, hairless leg. She could see blood inside the broken bone, too. She circled the wound with the flame, then she led the fire into the mushy cavity under his knee. The fire illuminated his stringy muscle and durable ligaments while burning it all.

The gore didn’t bother Miki—not one bit. Acts of torture and murder desensitized her. The lighter went out. So, she pulled it out of the wound, ignited it again, then put it back in.

Evan fell unconscious, but his body kept jerking involuntarily. He awoke some thirty seconds later, gasping for air. His wide, zany eyes swiveled in their sockets until he saw Miki.

“I thought I lost you,” she said, stroking the brown hair away from his sweaty forehead. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to help. But don’t worry, sweetie, I have another idea. If this doesn’t work, nothing will.”

Grimacing, Evan shook his head rapidly, foamy saliva spewing from the corners of his mouth. His hearing was starting to fade because of the pain, so he couldn’t hear everything from Miki. He already knew she was a bad woman, though— a monster . He wanted her to stay away from him. He wanted his mother.

Miki put one hand on his kneecap and the other on his shin. Her face trembled as she fought the desire to grin. She was acting like she cared about the boy, but she had always planned on murdering him.

And if it wasn’t him, it would have been one of his unlucky neighbors.

Miki pushed the broken bone back into his leg. Blood came gushing out of his shaking leg as the sharp edges of his bone shredded his nerves and blood vessels. It oozed past the slits between her gloved fingers. To her, it was a beautiful sight. So, she placed more pressure on his kneecap and shin, tightened her grip on his legs, then she turned her hands in opposite directions, as if she were wringing out a wet towel. Large drops of blood rained from his leg.